Hello I've been absent from this forum for a few years now but recently have had my anxieties flare up. Still twitching and have been for nearly 4 years. Had all the tests at the beginning and all fine and have just accepted it all

However since the summer I've admittedly had a lot of stress but I started noticing that my post nasal drip was back with a vengeance. It calmed down but recently has come back and I've now got a situation where I've scared myself stupid. Everyone I drink or swallow my nose feels like its cleared because I've put nadal spray up it. It's the left nostril and I know I have a bad deviated septum on this side. I then did the stupid thing of drinking saffron coloured water and shoving tissues up my nose to see if I have nasal regurgitation and there was a tiny dot of yellow on the tissue. I'm beside myself as I'm now convinced this is it and I've got the dreaded. Everything I read says that nasal regurgitation is only caused by neurological issues. Is thus true? I've had post nasal drip and allergies all my life and I know that my nose is very sensitive at the moment. Could I have had this all my life but I'm just sensitive to it at the moment. Please....can anyone give me some reassurances. Thanks

Well I figure if liquid is coming back up and reaching my nose the dye will show up. Out of may ties it's only possiby shown up as a micro dot once or twice. GP thinks I'm mad and said he gets water up his nose sometimes. I just want some reassurance but obviously as it is a proper flag for neurological problems no one has had it which means I'm really screwed.....

Well I figure if liquid is coming back up and reaching my nose the dye will show up. Out of may ties it's only possiby shown up as a micro dot once or twice. GP thinks I'm mad and said he gets water up his nose sometimes. I just want some reassurance but obviously as it is a proper flag for neurological problems no one has had it which means I'm really screwed.....

Englishtwitcher wrote:Well I figure if liquid is coming back up and reaching my nose the dye will show up. Out of may ties it's only possiby shown up as a micro dot once or twice. GP thinks I'm mad and said he gets water up his nose sometimes. I just want some reassurance but obviously as it is a proper flag for neurological problems no one has had it which means I'm really screwed.....

Well in the name of science I reproduced your experiment. I used cran-apple juice as it is distinctively colored. I discovered a couple things.

1. My wife things I'm nuts when I shove things up my nose while gulping cran-apple juice.2. I forgot how much I hated the taste of cranberries.

But seriously, when I did this I had a couple dots of yellow on my tissue. However under a flashlight this appears to have been standard mucus, I suspect yours was as well. I had my wife reproduce the test only she drank nothing, just shoved a tissue as far up her nose as she could stand. She too had a spec of yellow on it. So what I'm assuming is that you got some mucus on your tissue. It's sinus season for many as the weather is changing so this wouldn't be surprising.

Bless you! Thanks for doing that. What colour is the juice? I thought it was red! I've gone so mad this week. I even put blue food colouring into water to see but no dye came through. I'm trying to stop doing it as it is properly driving me crazy. When I asked my husband to try it he refuses as he thinks he's just encouraging me. I wish he would as then I can compare.

I read on here a post by Litter Lost who used to do this and she always had dots which were worse when she had inflammation. It's the thing that's keeping me going.

Still not calming down. If anything its getting worse and my testing is too. Have trawled this site for answers and it appears some have experienced this before. I've messaged little lost and twitchy doc but neither have responded. Feeling very lost and alone.

Englishtwitcher wrote:Still not calming down. If anything its getting worse and my testing is too. Have trawled this site for answers and it appears some have experienced this before. I've messaged little lost and twitchy doc but neither have responded. Feeling very lost and alone.

Well my post nasal drip is going something fierce at the moment as well. In fact my sinuses are a mess in general. As to the color of the Cran-Apple juice it's a deep purple. I chose it because it's an easily discernible color. I suspect that if you stick something far enough up your nose chances are you're going to find a little yellow, green, or even red if you have some sinus troubles.

Arkasan you are keeping me sane. I've been twitching 4 years and have ups and downs but I feel like I'm about to disappear down a rabbit hole. I've been drinking so much and testing it's laughable. Sometimes it's wetter but still really hard to know whether it's mucous or the liquid coming back up. I'm hoping we all have a certain amount that we DON'T notice but I do get because I'm sensitive and actually it's normal but I goigle it and nowhere does it say it's normal.

Englishtwitcher wrote:Arkasan you are keeping me sane. I've been twitching 4 years and have ups and downs but I feel like I'm about to disappear down a rabbit hole. I've been drinking so much and testing it's laughable. Sometimes it's wetter but still really hard to know whether it's mucous or the liquid coming back up. I'm hoping we all have a certain amount that we DON'T notice but I do get because I'm sensitive and actually it's normal but I goigle it and nowhere does it say it's normal.

I would imagine the wetness is mucus each time, it would make sense to have different amounts at different times. Don't worry what google says, it's a shaky source of information at best and I promise you I've come across conflicting information about a great many things on the web. As to the constant testing, I totally get that I struggle with it. What I've done in the past is set a time. I have to go X amount of time without testing, then I have 5 minutes during which I can test. The goal is to slowly increase the time between when you can test. At first it is important to stay busy during those times which you cant test.

As to keeping you sane, I'm glad I can help. I've received so much help from so many here and on other forums over these past four years that the least I can do is pay it forward.

1) There is a condition called gustatory rhinitis, which might be triggered even by drinks.2) Dye test is a reliable one when you see a lot of coloured mucus on the tissue. You have to realize that when you drink, the mucosa in your throat is covered by residual material. If you blow your nose forcefully, the material is simpy sucked up in the nasal cavity in tiny amounts - and can appear on the tissue.

While true nasal regurgitation is usually neurogenic (if not caused by morphological cause), patients often have liquids actually dripping out of their noses. Blowing nose in those cases results in striking amount of liquid mixed with mucous on the tissue.

Hi TwitchyDoc thanks so much for the reply. I never have anything come through except that one time when I saw the dot of saffron but to be fair I'd been blowing and snorting lots before then. The feeling seems to come and go and I've never had water dripping out my nose. My soft palate looks normal according to the GP

I think it's more sinus related as my sinuses keep clearing and unclearing and I can feel them clicking. My speech is normal and my voice is too. I've stuffed so many tissues up my nose that my nostrils now do sting so I've started using a sterile seawater wash to calm it down.